


Alive

by zeltronparty (reanimatrix)



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, Danse Spoilers, F/M, Pre-Relationship, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 07:28:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5576692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reanimatrix/pseuds/zeltronparty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Helping someone having an existential crisis is difficult, particularly when your way of dealing with your own feelings is to not think about them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alive

**Author's Note:**

> Since we never learn Danse's first name, I headcanon he and Doris ALWAYS call each other by their last names because they’re both weird military types and it’s a strange form of affection.

“How does it feel to be alive?”

Doris’ back straightened as she turned to face Danse, furrowing her brow. She fiddled with the box of preserved apples in her hand, nervously. This, she suspected, was an important question.

“What,” she asked, “do you mean?”

“What is it like?” he asked her, “I mean, I’m still trying to… understand what I am. What the difference between being a machine programmed to behave like a living being, and an actual living being, is.”

Doris took a deep breath. She’d just wanted to help him fix up Listening Post Bravo, where he had holed himself up after, well, everything. She knew he wasn’t in a great state of mind, understandably, and the whole reason she was here was to make sure he was okay. Her idea of that, however, was to fix the place up, make it less grim of a place. This was not something she had accounted for.

“I-I don’t know. I don’t really have anything to compare it to, I guess.” She replied uneasily. She’d failed her philosophy class. Deep thought was hardly her strength and she felt the misfortune of that more than ever. “I don’t imagine it feels that different, being a human, from being a synth.”

He frowned at her, and she cringed, feeling a knot in her stomach that she refused to acknowledge or show. The box in her hand was starting to look the worse for wear.

“How do you know, though? I’ve spent my entire life thinking I’m human, and now…”

“Because, to be honest, I… I still don’t think of you as not human. I can’t think of you as not human. It’s just… you’re nothing like a machine.” she replied, moving closer to him. Was that the right thing to say? The completely wrong thing to say? Probably the worst thing she could have said. She was, completely and absolutely out of her league right now, and she didn’t like it.

“But I am a machine, Silva. None of what I feel is real. It’s all just.. an imitation.”

He looked at her with the most heartbreaking expression she had ever seen. She bit her lip and set the rather mangled box down. It didn’t help that he looked extremely vulnerable right now, without the power armor that she had become so used to seeing him in. Despite the fact that he was still taller than her, and broad, he looked so small. 

“But now I understand, at least, why you’re still here, despite everything. It’s a rather difficult thing to process, isn’t it?”

Oh it had absolutely been the wrong thing. Of course it had. Fuck. Stepping forward and taking his hands with a light squeeze, she looked into his eyes. If she was good at anything it was holding eye contact.

“When I look at you, I… well it doesn’t matter that you’re not human. I see intense loyalty. I see an ability to care. I see kindness, and I see fear, and I see uncertainty, and I see confusion and feelings that no word could possibly describe.”

“When - when Haylen gave me the coordinates for this place, she said that you were still you, regardless of being a synth. Haylen stuck up for you. She stormed into Quinlan’s office, I mean I’ve never seen anyone walk into a place so aggressively. And–”

She faltered, feeling utterly inadequate and extremely nervous, but didn’t stop looking at him. The look on his face still tore her apart. Her solution to problems was always to fix them as quickly as possible. That wasn’t an option here, there was no easy fix for his life falling apart so suddenly. She understood it, oh she understood feeling like the rug had been pulled from under you. But understanding didn’t help here. She couldn’t ever fix her own problems, and at least she still knew who she was.

“Well, Haylen was right. You’re still you. You’re still the person who held her when she needed it, who mourned the loss of the soldiers under you. Who chose not to let someone die a lingering death.”

“But that’s the atrocity of synths,” he replied, looking away from her but not pulling his hands out of her grip. “They–we are not human, but we pretend to be. We fool you into thinking we are. It’s fundamentally a lie.”

She sighed, and let go of his hands.

“I don’t know what to say, what will make you understand. Possibly nothing will. Maybe not yet, or ever. I asked you once, if you would hold me if I needed it. I was teasing then. I hate hugs.” she laughed awkwardly, finally betraying the mixture of sadness and anxiety she was feeling.

“I think you need to be held, though.” she wrapped her arms around him, obviously not familiar with the gesture, resting her face on his chest. He, just as awkwardly, wrapped his arms around her. This was something neither of them was used to, but they held each other for a long time.


End file.
